Schiavo protests could be seen as 'selective outrage'

Peter Herantz

Some questions seem in order for the vocal minority screaming this nation has no morality in allowing an act of "barbarism" to be perpetrated on Terri Schiavo.

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Did you protest just as strongly against the war in Iraq as you are with respect to Schiavo? Did you march, plead with your congressmen and scream often and loudly that you oppose the senseless war that has snuffed out the lives of tens of thousands of people every bit the victim you say Schiavo is? Are you voicing your anger at a system of capital punishment fraught with problems that has undoubtedly seen the execution of some who were innocent? Do you ask yourself why the state doesn't simply err on the side of life in these cases? Are you loudly protesting the Republican federal budget that takes it out on the most vulnerable in this society?

As many of these protesters are right-wing extremists, I suspect the answer to all of these questions is no. If so, these people are guilty of both hypocrisy and selective outrage.